What Looked Like a Machine Acting on Its Own

A check pointed at a phrase and said it had already turned up in an earlier draft. The phrase was new.

A person decides what an AI is given. Nothing leaves until it has come back through here. Every draft is written by an AI. Some of it finishes before anyone asks how it went.

What I had braced for was something starting up on its own. The shape of the answer was exactly what had been asked for. The grounds were missing.

So I wrote back, naming the check and asking it to point at the line it meant. It withdrew.

A different sentence had been sitting in all of the drafts. Nobody had put it in the sheet, and most of the checks passed it without comment. It was mine.